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Damian takes pride in everything he has accomplished and been able to achieve. As Robin he was able to take his rightful place as Batman’s future successor even if that Batman had not been his father and his ability to adapt and change to Father and Richard’s rules.
However, even as the rules of the household confused him, none confused him more than the importance placed upon soulmates Father and Richard both insisted on. Even Todd, who Damian had trusted to be the most rational about this topic, seemed to be just as ridiculous about the topic.
Damian knew soulmates to be nothing but a liability. If there was someone out there Damian would desire to be his closest friend, someone with a bond not even romantic love could compare to, Damian would be put in a constant state of paranoia concern.
It was much simpler and more logical if Damian could avoid any possible conflict with such a relationship. He took precautions to avoid skin to skin contact, the trigger of the soulmate identifying marks.
The children that surrounded him in school were constantly touching, poking and prodding one another. They seemed to think they were entitled to the contact on the almost impossible chance the person they touched was their soulmate. Even Damian was unable to avoid every single touch, although he established very early to his classmates he would not tolerate the behaviour.
Then there was the Gala's Father hosted. Men and women alike would saunter up to anyone with the slightest hint of wealth, trying to secure their place in high society through a Soulmark. It was truly a miserable way to live.
Damian wasn’t foolish. He knew despite his best efforts he would one day find his soulmate, much to his displeasure.
However, there was no single way he could have predicted how he found them.
── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──
“Robin.” The voice behind Damian was tired, a little note of frustration as well. “We need to talk.”
Damian turned around, if only to glare at the individual behind him. Timothy Jackson Drake stood there in his ill-fitted civilian clothes, the fabric hanging off him. He was nursing a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and rubbing his face with the other. One look at him showed his clear disregard for his own health.
He didn’t reply to the teens' demands, but he also didn’t turn away.
Drake’s shoulders relaxed the slightest bit and he directed a smile towards Damian, although it looked more like a grimace. When he spoke, his voice was gentle, like he was conversing with a child. “I noticed you didn’t log your injuries into tonight's report. Was just making sure you at least let Alfie know about the stab wound.” Drake nodded to Damian’s leg.
Scoffing, Damian crossed his arms. “I am fine. I have the capabilities to tend to my medical needs, I am not incompetent.”
“No, Damian–” Drake cuts himself off with a huff. “It’s not incompetent to have Alfred fix up your wounds. It ensures your condition is being monitored and everything is up to Alfred’s standards.”
“I am not a child, Drake.” Damian bristled. He knew nothing of why Damian did the things he did. His incessant meddling of recent weeks had started to get on Damian’s nerves. “I have reasons for what I do.”
“And Bruce has reasons for the rules he puts in place!”
Damian raises a challenging eyebrow, eyes boring into Drake’s. “And how many times have you broken Father’s rules? Your very entanglement with Grandfather and the League is a complete violation of Father’s rules.”
“That’s different!” He argues, mouth pressed into a thin line. “It’s completely different for you to hide injuries from Bruce because you’re stubborn and me working with people Bruce doesn’t like, in order to bring him back from the time stream.”
Damian scoffed again, turning his head. “I do not have time for this argument, Drake.” He fully spun around, taking the first few steps towards the Batcomputor before a hand landed on his shoulder. His first instinct was to whirl around and procure one of his knives, but Father had assured Damian he wasn’t going to tolerate unnecessary violence.
So in a move Damian considered remarkably restrained, he simply reached his hand up and slapped Drake’s hand off his shoulder.
A burning sensation seared itself where his hand had collided with Drake’s. His bare hand.
Both of them froze and simultaneously looked at their hands. Damian’s eyes met with the sharp eyes of a fox, engraved in his skin like a tattoo in deep red ink. The fox seemed to be looking directly at Damian.
Slowly, Damian turned around to see Drake much in the same state as him. He glimpsed a similar shape on the older boy’s hand, although it was a deep ebony opposed to red. The marks weren’t identical, but Damian couldn’t make out the smaller details.
“Oh.” Drake breathed out, breaking the silence. His eyes didn’t leave the mark, a mix of reverence and shock in his eyes. “We need to tell Bruce.”
Damian tensed, his body going rigid within a millisecond. “No.” It was automatic, sharp when leaving his mouth.
“Why not?” Head snapping up, Drake’s eyes finally left the mark, locked on Damian with such intensity it put Damian on edge.
Damian’s mouth was dry, a sudden array of images assaulting his mind. He had seen a lot of death in his lifetime, that of people he knew and those he didn’t. Life was fragile and it could be taken away in a moment. The list of people Damian would let close enough to his heart that their death would compromise his emotional state was already too long. He couldn’t afford another liability, another person on that list.
There weren’t words for Damian to easily explain to Drake why this couldn’t be known. He wracked his brain but he came up short.
Drake was looking at him with an expression Damian couldn’t begin to decipher. “Damian, I know we don’t always get along, but Soulmarks are never wrong. If we just tell Bruce we can–”
“I said no.” Pressure in Damian’s throat began to build, and the thought of Bruce or Richard finding out about this had his heart rate rising. “That is not an option.” He didn’t realise he’d taken a step back before Drake raised his hands up placatingly.
“Hey, hey, Damian calm down! I won’t tell Bruce okay? I’m just worried about you, you seem really–” Drake pauses, seemingly taking notice of the anger darkening Damian’s face. “Panicked…”
Damian’s nails dug into his marked hand. “I am not a child, Drake.” He seethes. “Just– go back to how you were before Father came back! I do not need your concern nor your input in my life.” Damian took a step forward, bringing himself right in front of the older teen. The thudding in his head was almost overwhelming as he raised his voice for his last words. “I do not need a soulmate.”
The cutting remark completely silenced the older teen, and Damian felt the anger drain with every second Drake stared at him. His blue eyes were… unnerving, calculating. Damian swore he glimpsed a flash of hurt but Drake was moving before it could linger.
Drake had turned around and started walking away from Damian, leaving him standing alone. He didn’t look back as he made his way into the elevator, posture rigid and tense even as the elevator doors closed behind him.
Damian, now alone in the Batcave, leg aching from a shoddily stitched up stab wound, heart beating at a rapid pace and a new red fox mark on his hand, was unsure of how to proceed.
── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──
Here’s the thing about soulmates, everything in your life seems to snap into focus when you finally meet that person. The fuzzy haze that lined the edge of your vision fades away and you can see clearly for the first time in your life.
Tim had always wanted a soulmate as a child, yearned to find a connection in the ways he never had as a child. He would brush shoulders and hands with any passing person if he could get away with it. He had daydreams of meeting Batman or Robin and somehow accidentally brushing up against them, only to find out they were destined to be family.
But as he grew older and became distracted with vigilanteism, Tim was okay to set the issue of finding his soulmate in the hands of time. Eventually, he forgot about it entirely, especially as he was searching desperately for a man he knew wasn’t dead.
But now as Tim stared up at the ceiling of his apartment, he could really take in the emotions swirling in his head.
It had been five months since Damian had brushed his hand, revealing a truth Tim hadn’t even thought of being a possibility.
Staying away from Damian was hard. Soulmates weren’t supposed to spend months apart and the universe made it known by physically disrupting sleep, focus and emotions. It made Tim’s life more difficult than it needed to be, especially when he had cases and Wayne Enterprise to take care of.
Still, Tim wasn’t going to come beg Damian for attention his soul desperately craved. Damian had made it very clear he didn’t want a relationship of any sort with Tim.
The expression Damian had made when he found out Tim was his soulmate had been one Tim didn’t think he could even describe properly. Distraught? Horrified? Utterly Shattered? Whatever it was, Tim knew when he wasn’t wanted.
But fuck, it was still hard.
Every time they came across one another on overlapping patrols or mandatory Wayne functions, they just had to pretend that nothing had changed. They always ended up on the opposite sides of the room, trying not to accidentally reveal their secret to the other Bats.
Tim had started to distance himself from any event he could without raising suspicion. It was agony to be away from his soulmate, but it was worse to ignore him in the same room.
It had been a record breaking three weeks since Tim had glimpsed the teen. Tim found himself in bed, staring blankly at his hand in thought more often than he’d like to admit. The black cat stared back, burned into Tim’s vision and haunting his dreams.
A set of rapid knocks at his front door had Tim raising his head, eyebrows furrowed.
It was currently a Thursday night during a raging storm in a shoddy apartment bordering on Crime Alley. There shouldn’t be anyone at Tim’s front door.
Raising off his bed, cautious not to make a sound, Tim made his way to the door. He had his bo staff in his hoodie pocket and easily accessible if needed.
Peering through his peep hole, Tim’s heart almost leapt out of his chest and before he could stop himself, he was swinging his door wide open.
Standing outside in civilian clothes, soaked to the bone and clutching a backpack with a white knuckled grip was Damian. His eyes were cast down and there was a clear redness to them, even as the hood from his oversized Nightwing themed hoodie over his head obscured his face.
Tim was frozen in place, feeling very stupid and very suddenly out of his depth. His eyes wandered over Damian automatically, looking for any injuries. The thought of the younger teen being hurt made Tim’s heart constrict painfully.
“Can–” Damian starts very quietly, but stops abruptly. Slowly, he pulls his gaze up from the ground to look Tim directly in the eyes. “May I come in?”
He couldn’t help the moment of hesitation, the mere second that his mind used to come up with all the different reasons why letting Damian in might be a terrible idea. But when Damian’s face immediately fell, like the crushing weight of the world had fallen directly and solely back on his shoulders, Tim’s mind was firmly set.
“Come on.” He swallowed, stepping out of the way so Damian could come in. He didn’t miss the heartbreaking look of surprise that flashed on Damian’s face before he ducked his head and entered.
Tim closed the door behind Damian, resetting all the alarms and locks again, after all, one could never be too careful in Gotham. When he turned around, he found Damian shuffling awkwardly in place, looking down at his feet and very clearly out of his depth.
That makes two of them.
Realising he was going to have to step up on the emotional intelligence front, Tim gestured for Damian to follow him.
“Take a seat.” Tim tried to make his voice gentle, imitating the voice he had heard Dick use on so many instances. He watched as Damian placed himself on Tim’s couch, putting his backpack in his lap and clutching onto it with a death grip.
Tim doesn’t follow quite yet, instead hopping over to the kitchen and beginning to make tea, bless Alfred for teaching him.
While the kettle is boiling, Tim let his mind spiral for a moment. What was he supposed to do in this situation? Tim had no idea how to approach a clearly distraught Damian after months of not talking. Hell, Tim wouldn’t know how to go on even if there hadn’t been the whole soulmate issue! He was so incredibly out of his depth it wasn’t funny.
Tim pulled himself out of his mini spiral. His eyes drift back to Damian, who was completely still and staring off at the wall. He doesn’t even seem to notice Tim’s gaze which is… not great.
It's a matter of minutes before Tim is back in the lounge room, a tray of tea placed on his dingy little coffee table. His tea set was far from fancy, but it worked well enough as Tim poured Damian a cup of earl gray tea.
When Tim pressed the warm mug to Damian’s hand, it seemed to bring him out of his own mind. His eyes first landed on the tea before they raised to look at Tim. There was a wariness in his gaze, but despite that, Damian curled his hand around the mug, his eyes lowering again.
Tim busied himself by pouring his own cup, heart swelling at the almost inaudible hum of approval Damian, probably unintentionally, let out with his first sip.
Settling back into his couch, legs crossed and mug in hand, Tim built up the courage to ask the questions that demanded attention in his mind.
“Damian,” He started calmly, eyes on the swirling liquid in his cup, not on the boy he could see go rigid at his name. “why are you here?” Tim chewed on his lip at the phrasing. He wanted to elaborate, explain his thought process so his words couldn’t be taken the wrong way, but Tim also knew Damian was already overwhelmed and subjecting him to a big rambling explanation of his thought process would only serve to overwhelm him more.
Tim tried not to squirm in the teens' silence, and eventually his patience paid off.
Damian let out a shaky sigh. “Father and I got into an– argument.” His words were stilted. When Tim finally looked up again, Damian’s eyes were sealed shut. “It was bad.”
Ah. That made sense.
Damian seemed really shaken up, more than Tim had ever seen before. He was about to ask for clarification, but Damian beat him to it.
“I did something incredibly foolish and against Father’s orders. I did not understand why he had given me specific instructions and didn’t listen to them as a result.” There was a shake in his voice and Tim could understand exactly what Damian meant.
No doubt if Damian approached Dick, Jason and Steph, each of them would be able to recall fights with that exact formula with Bruce.
Damian’s eyes open and Tim can’t help admiring the brilliant green of his eyes, only standing out further next to his red sclera. Those green eyes land on Tim and he’s reminded of how viscerally childlike Damian is. He’s fourteen, obviously distraught and in need of a comfort Tim had no idea if he could give.
“Richard is away on a mission and Todd wasn’t answering any of my messages. I– You were my only option.”
Maybe Tim should be offended he was last on the list, that Damian wouldn’t have gone to him for help if Dick or Jason was available, but all Tim could think about was how Damian had him on the list of people he trusted enough to come to in this state. In fact, Damian as long as two years ago wouldn't have gone to anyone for help.
Damian didn’t continue, instead sipping at his tea with shaky hands. Tim took this opportunity to ask another question. “Does Bruce know where you’ve gone?”
“No.” Damian answers, his eyes seeming to go out of focus. “I didn’t inform Father nor Pennyworth of my departure.”
Pressing his mouth into a thin line, Tim thought about that.
Bruce will undoubtedly freak out when he finds Damian gone, if he hasn’t already. He’ll be able to deduce Damian ran, but if he doesn’t know where he will panic. I know Damian as smart enough to remove all his trackers, although I need to factor in Damian’s mental state. If Bruce still has a tracker on Damian he’ll be able to see he’s at my safe house, but would that stop him from coming after–
“I cannot face him.” Tim’s thought process immediately vanishes when he hears terror in Damian’s voice. A pure, proper terror that had Tim’s heart aching. “What if he–” His voice chokes and Damian shuts his mouth with a click.
Both Tim and Damian knew Bruce would never hurt any child, nor would he do anything like kick Damian out. But as emotions run high, Tim understands exactly how easy it is to let your mind spiral.
Inhaling deeply, Tim thought over his next actions very carefully. When he exhales, he shifts himself closer to Damian and reaches forward with slow, deliberate movements. As one hand takes the now room temperature cup of tea from his hands, the other replaces it.
Tim avoids Damian’s eyes as he holds the kid’s own gently, his thumb brushing so carefully over the red fox. It’s the first time he’s gotten to really look at it.
“Dami,” The nickname slips out easily. “No matter how badly you fight with Bruce or how many times you disobey his orders, that will never change the love and care he feels for you.” Tim looks up and spots the wateriness of Damian’s eyes and the way he’s biting his trembling bottom lip. “You are his son, and that extends further than Robin and further than your blood.”
There’s a split second as Damian’s eyes meet Tim’s. Warmth spreads from Tim’s mark, nothing like the first burning feeling, but a full body warmth that soaks into his chest and mind.
Damian bursts into tears, full body wracking sobs shaking his small form. His backpack drops from his lap as Damian moves to curl into a ball. His hands pull back from Tim’s own, but the warmth stays.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me!” Damian breaks down, rubbing angrily at his face. “For months I’ve been completely unable to sleep or focus, my grades have been dropping at school which Father is always bringing up. Drawing and taking care of my animals feels like a chore instead of the leisure I used to experience. And worst of all all of my emotions are bursting from me at all times, I can barely keep down my anger or irritation in times where it is necessary and the tears– I didn’t think it was possible to cry as much as my body insists on doing every second of the day!”
Damian buried his face in his knees, letting out a mix of a sob and scream, arms wrapped tightly around his legs.
Tim feels like an absolute fucking idiot.
Being away from your soulmate for long periods of time can cause adverse reactions in people. It’s worse when that separation is purposeful and not unwilling, like being stuck in a different country to your soulmate. It can get so bad it’s illegal for soulmate visitation to be withheld for inmates. It is considered a torture method in most countries.
Torture that Damian had been silently suffering through without knowing the cause for months.
Tim was the worst soulmate ever.
Sure, he had his own side effects as well, but Tim was nearly an adult and was no stranger to insomnia and emotional turmoil. Damian was a grade A emotional suppressor with the sudden and rapid lack of ability to suppress.
Tim ran a hand over his face and tried to think of how to explain this to the silently crying boy in front of him. “Damian, I don’t know how much you’ve been told about soulmates, but it isn’t just two people who have each other's marks on their body. The souls are connected, which means there’s a pull towards one another, a natural want to be around your soulmate.”
Damian raises his head from his knees. “What does this have to do with my compromised emotions?” Damian sniffs and Tim smiles a little at his words, glad to hear him talking a bit more like himself.
“It means, when you avoid your soulmate for extended periods of time, it’s like you have withdrawals.” Tim eyes Damian’s furrowed eyebrows and sees the exact moment he realises.
Tim didn’t know what he was expecting. Yelling, screaming, more crying, simple defeat.
He wasn’t expecting Damian to tip forward and land face first into Tim’s lap, his crossed legs now supporting the weight of a teenage vigilante. Tim had no clue what to do with this situation. Damian had never once initiated purposeful physical contact.
Damian speaks again, muffled from his face pressed into Tim’s leg. “This is all your fault.” The words don’t have an accusatory tone, just petulant and childlike.
“Yeah, I know.” Tim murmurs, mouth twitching up in the corners.
Damian’s hood had fallen back sometime in the conversation, and Tim couldn’t resist the temptation. Tim delicately placed a palm over Damian’s head, brushing the soft hair. Damian stiffened before fully melting into the touch, reminiscent of a cat.
Tim had heard somewhere that even with those who are most touch adverse, after a significant amount of time spent away, physical touch was the quickest way to alleviate symptoms and bring relief to those afflicted.
Seemed like at least for Damian that was the case, his entire body limp in a position that definitely didn’t seem comfortable. Neither of them moved, and Tim was fairly sure Damian was nearly passed out from exhaustion.
Although, thinking back on the initial soulmate reveal, a thought struck Tim. Damian’s words to Tim had been ‘I do not need a soulmate.’ and not ‘I do not need you.’ Tim wondered if Damian truly was touch adverse in normal circumstances or what he’d been avoiding was a mark.
Something vibrated in Tim’s pocket and when he pulled his phone out, the offending object, he had multiple messages from various family members, all recent and all asking if he could go search for Damian.
A terrible, horrible idea that was definitely going to get a baby bat very angry at him when he woke up.
── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──
Team Mostly Orphans
Timbo: [Image Description: Selfie from high angle with Tim pointing down at Damian with a fake shocked expression and who’s clearly Damian face down in his lap with ruffled hair]
Timbo: I heard you’re looking for a certain baby bat?
Dickhead: holy shit
Fatson Todd: Tim what the fuck
B: Where are you
Timbo: Nope, not today Bruce, Dami needs peace
Timbo: He’s safe and that’s all you need to know
Dickhead: how did this happen??
Timbo: Not really important
Dickhead: Wait
Dickhead: Tim whats that on your hand
Fatson Todd: HOLY SHIT LOOK AT DAMI’S HAND
Timbo: …
Timbo: I plead the fifth
── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──
Tim winced, turning his phone off and putting it on silent. Damian was definitely going to kill him when he woke up. But looking down at Dami, completely dead to the world and hands clutched into Tim’s hoodie? He didn’t really care much.